The ruling that redraws the line between leadership and legal liability
New Zealand's first conviction of an officer of a large and complex PCBU for failing to exercise due diligence under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 was upheld by the High Court in Gibson v Maritime New Zealand [2026] NZHC 813, dated 31 March 2026.
The case begins with a tragedy. On 30 August 2020, Pala'amo Kalati, a 31-year-old worker at the Port of Auckland, died when a shipping container fell on him while he was lashing containers on board the MV Constantinos P. Maritime New Zealand subsequently charged both Ports of Auckland Limited (POAL) and its then-chief executive, Anthony Michael Gibson, under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.
POAL pleaded guilty. Gibson went to trial. On 26 November 2024, the Auckland District Court found him guilty of failing to exercise due diligence as an officer of the company. On 21 February 2025, he was sentenced to a $130,000 fine and ordered to pay costs of $60,000. Both his conviction and sentence appeals were dismissed by Justice Gault on 31 March 2026.
It was the first time an officer of a large and complex PCBU, a person conducting a business or undertaking, had been convicted of failing to exercise due diligence under HSWA in New Zealand.
The verdict turned on omission rather than action. The court found Gibson had not taken reasonable steps to ensure a clearly documented, effectively implemented, and appropriate exclusion zone around operating cranes, and had not taken reasonable steps to verify that those processes were actually being used. He was acquitted of a separate particularised failure within the same charge, relating to operational changes made during COVID-19.
What made the case unusual was that by most measures, Gibson was an engaged and committed leader. The court found he personally ran 30 staff workshops a year, introduced numerous health and safety initiatives during his tenure, never placed resource constraints on safety, and was rated by POAL's Board Chair in the upper quartile of the many CEOs she had worked with. Maritime New Zealand's own expert witness, Mr Kahler, accepted that Gibson's general approach to his role was to be diligent and conscientious, and that it was plain Gibson was someone who cared for his workforce. However, Mr Kahler's central evidence was that, despite those qualities, Gibson had not taken reasonable steps to put critical controls in place in relation to the appropriate exclusion zone around operating cranes.
The trial judge put it plainly, in words the High Court did not disturb: "A good leader and a conscientious officer may have the best intentions in the world but may still breach that duty."
The court identified a gap between POAL's documented safety systems and what workers were actually doing on the night shift. Training materials on the exclusion zone rule were confusing and, often, inconsistent, workers held different understandings of how it applied, and ongoing non-compliance went undetected. A restructuring proposal from the Manager of Stevedoring in April or May 2019, which would have improved structured observation of the stevedore workforce, was declined at management level without reference to Gibson. A second restructuring proposal in mid-2020 was also declined, and the court concluded Gibson must have been made aware of it.
Under the Act, the definition of "officer" extends beyond directors to anyone exercising significant influence over the management of a business, with chief executives explicitly cited as an example. Whether any particular role falls within that definition will depend on the nature of the position and the degree of influence it carries over the management of the business.
Maritime New Zealand's own published guidance, referenced in the judgment, states: "Land-based directors and chief executives don't have to be experts in health and safety, but they do need to make a reasonable effort to understand what questions they need to ask."
The Gibson case draws attention to three practical areas: whether training materials are clear and consistently understood across all shifts and roles; whether monitoring systems capture what workers actually do rather than what policy says they should do; and whether proposals surfacing safety concerns reach the right people in the organisation.
